Category Archives: The Lord’s Name

I want to read a little portion from the book of John, “And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” In John, chapters 14, 15, and 16, Jesus says to ask in His name at least six, maybe seven times. That means to ask God for things in the name of Jesus Christ. Today, on this program, In the Beginning, we are going to talk about what it means to ask in the name of Jesus. We are going to cover the matter of prayer in the Bible. I want to read from the gospel of Luke, “And I say to you, ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives, and He who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it shall be opened.” We have three important words in this little portion: Number one, asking. Number two, seeking. Number three, knocking. These are three forms or types of prayer. Today we want to talk about these three words. What does it mean to ask? What does it mean to seek? What does it mean to knock? And what is the real essence of prayer? What does it mean to pray?In Romans 8, Paul is talking about living in the Spirit, how we need to walk in the Spirit, and how we need to set our mind on the Spirit. Later in that chapter he gets a little bit into the subject of prayer. I want to read from Romans 8. He says, “In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself, intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words.” Paul is saying that a lot of times we feel weak, and we need the Spirit to strengthen us. Not only that, a lot of times we don’t know how to pray. It says, here, that the Spirit intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words.

What is it to pray and how do you pray? I want to read another portion of Scripture on prayer. It says, “When My people, who bear My name (that means the Lord’s people, you and me), humble themselves, pray, and seek My favor and turn from their evil ways, I will hear from My heavenly abode (or from heaven) and hear and forgive their sins and heal their land.” It says we are to humble ourselves. This verse from II Chronicles has become a rather popular verse today on the subject of prayer because it contains several principles on prayer. Before I cover it piece-by-piece, I want to make the comment that some people like that verse and some apparently don’t like it. Some people in the Christian community have said that since this verse is from the Old Testament, it does not apply to us today in the New Testament, or does not apply to Christians. They say to look at the context of this verse. What is the context of this verse? The context is God speaking to Solomon. God is telling Solomon, “If My people (that is God’s people) obey Me, follow Me, walk with Me, and do the things I want to do, then everything will be just fine. But, if you turn away to do evil things and things that I am not happy with, then evil will come on your land, the enemy will come in, and all kinds of problems will occur.” He says, “If you will pray and turn back to God then I will restore the land and solve all the problems.” So some people say this passage does not apply to the New Testament because the context is for Israel. I have two comments on that. In the book of I Corinthians, it is talking about Moses and the things that happened in the Old Testament. Paul is saying that all these things happened as an example for us. In other words, what happened was really for us, an example to us. That means what? We can take this passage out of the Old Testament and apply it to the New Testament. Why? Because there are some principles there for us that do apply even though that verse is actually addressed to the children of Israel. Secondly I would say it this way, if some people want to say this verse does not apply to us because it is taken out of context, and is speaking to Israel and not to the Church, I would ask, “What about the Ten Commandments and the Psalms? I do not believe that the Ten Commandments and the psalms were really not written for us, but we still enjoy them. So, based on those principles I believe we should accept this passage in II Chronicles 7:14 as applying to us today. There are several things mentioned in this passage and I would like to quickly go over some of them. First of all it says, “My people.” It doesn’t just say, “Hey you people over there.” It says My people, His own personal people, “Who bear My name.” We, as Christians, bear God’s name. It says we are to humble ourselves. What does that mean? This means to admit who we are, and be willing to admit our failures, problems, and so on. It says to, “Pray and seek My favor.” What does it mean to pray? We will get into that in just a few minutes. We are to seek His favor, seek after God, and after the things of God.We are to turn from our evil ways. In other words, it is one thing to seek after God, but it is another thing to turn away from things we know God is not happy with. We need to turn from evil things.

Then there is a promise here, “I will hear from heaven.” God will answer prayer. He says, “Then I will forgive their sins and heal their land.” I want to read II Chronicles 7:14 one more time. ”When My people, who bear My name, humble themselves…” It is something to humble yourself. That means to admit our own failures, to admit our sins and not hide them. Then, “Pray and seek My favor, turn from their evil ways, and I will hear from heaven, forgive their sins, and heal their land.” There is a whole bunch of things mentioned here and I want to go over them again one-by-one. It says, “When My people.” It is not just the people out there, or the people over there, or some kind of an impersonal group of people but is “My people”, God’s people, or people who are God’s own possession. Then it says, “Who bear My name.” We, as Christians, bear the name of Christ; we bear the name of God. Then it says, “Humble themselves.” That means what? Admitting where we are. There is one little principle of prayer I wasn’t planning to get into yet but I will go ahead and mention it. Don’t be phony with God in prayer. When things are not going so good, tell it to God the way it is. Humbling ourselves means admitting where we really are, and admitting our own problems before God. It says, “Pray and seek My favor.” We need to seek the face of God. It is one thing to pray and seek God’s face, but along with this needs to come a turning from evil, a turning away from the things we know God is not pleased with or God is not happy with. There is a promise here, “I will hear from heaven.” In other words, God hears prayer. Then, “I will forgive their sins and heal their land.” That means God restores our situation.

I would like to read a passage to you from Matthew 6. This passage is sometimes called the model prayer, or the Lord’s Prayer. I want to read through some of these verses, and then we are going to go back through a do a little commentary on this portion. “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.” I want to give you some definite points concerning this prayer. I came up with seven points. I realize that as you read it and study it, you may come up with more or less. Basically I grouped these seven points into two groups. The first group has three, and the second group four points.
Thy name, Thy Kingdom, and Thy will
The first group of thee points includes the name of God, the Kingdom of God, and the will of God. It says, “Thy name be sanctified (or hallowed).” Then it says, “Thy Kingdom come”. Then it says, “Thy will be done.” In this first little section we have three “Thy’s”: Thy name, Thy Kingdom, and Thy will. These three points, I believe, are very crucial in this prayer. There are four points in the second portion of prayer and these points relate to us. It is interesting—the first three points relate to God: Thy name—the name of God; “Thy Kingdom come”, the Kingdom of God; “Thy will be done”, the will of God. The last four points relate to us: Give us this day our daily bread. In other words, God, give us today, what we need to live on for today. Then it says, “Forgive us”. In other words, forgive us our debts as we forgive those who have done things against us. Then it says, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” So there are four points there. Give us our daily bread. Then you have, “Forgive us our debts”. Then you have, “Lead us”, and finally, deliverance. Those four points cover that second section of the prayer. That prayer can be divided into two sections—the first section related to God. Notice the prayer does not begin with our needs—God I need this, or deliver me from evil and so on, but it first starts out with God: the name of God, the Kingdom of God, and the will of God. So this prayer begins with God and then it ends with petitioning God for the things we need—supply us, lead us, deliver us, forgive us, and so on. That sequence, there, of God first, reminds me of another verse in the book of Matthew where it says, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you.” The context, there is us being concerned about what we need to live from day-to-day, the cares and concerns we have regarding ourselves, our family, our city, nation and things like that. But there it says to seek first the Kingdom of God. Then it says all these things we need will be supplied to us. That is the same sequence we have in this prayer. This prayer starts out with honoring the name of God, then praying that God’s Kingdom would come, and third, praying that God’s will would be done on the earth just like it is in heaven. Then it finishes up with, “Lord, give us what we need”, “Forgive us”, “Lead us”, and also, “Lord deliver us from evil.” Now let’s go through this prayer piece-by-piece and point-by-point and I will show you how this prayer references, I believe, other places in the Bible.

The first point about the name of God being sanctified or hallowed (however you want to translate it) always reminds me of two portions in the Bible. The first one is from Philippians 2 “And being found in fashion as a man, He (that is, Jesus Christ), humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the cross, even to death on the cross. Wherefore God also highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him a name (or the name) which is above every name.” It is interesting how he talks about the name, here, “That at the name of Jesus every one should bow, those who are in heaven, on the earth, and under the earth. That every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” This is a statement about how Jesus Christ went through death and resurrection, and then He was exalted. And when He was exalted, He was given a name. Listen—everything else has to come under the name of Jesus. That means things in the heavens, things on the earth, and things under the earth. This is related to a name. I think we realize that just about everything, today has a name. Trees have names, lakes have names, cities, states, countries have a name, you and I have a name, and our cars have a name. The street we live on has a name. We name everything. But according to this verse, this name, the name of Jesus, is higher than any other name on the earth. This is a very good way to pray. A lot of times when things trouble us, when distressful things come to us, or things that are out of line with the will of God we can pray this way. We can say, “God, in the name of Jesus, we say that all these other things have to bow to the name of Jesus, have to come under the name of Jesus.” Why? Because that name is a lifted up name. That name is the highest name in the universe. At one time, on one of the first programs I did, I said, “When Jesus passed through death and resurrection, and He was exalted, He attained to the highest management position in the entire universe.” In other words, He is Lord of lords, He is King of kings. So here in the book of Philippians it says that at the name of Jesus, in other words, at this high, exalted, lifted up and powerful name name, everything else in the universe, especially on the earth, has to come under the name of Jesus.
Thy Name
The second passage this always reminds me of is Psalm 8 where it says, “O Lord our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth!” Let’s read a small portion of Psalm 8. I am reading from a slightly different translation than what I just quoted from. It says, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name throughout the earth.” Then it says, “You Who have covered the heavens with Your splendor. From the mouth of infants and babes You have founded strength on account of Your foes, to put an end to the enemy and the avenger.” Finally Psalm 8 ends with the following phrase, “Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name throughout the earth.” It is interesting that David, in Psalm 8, would say, “How majestic is Your name throughout the earth”, when a lot of times you look around and see so many problems on the earth. We have our own problems and nations and countries and so on have problems. But yet David, in his spirit, was praying, “Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth.” This ties in with the Lord’s Prayer where he says what? Hallowed be Thy name. In other words, it is God’s intention for us to pray in the name of God onto the earth. Let’s go on to the next point. We have talked about the name of God. The next point is, “Thy Kingdom come.” This reminds me of two other passages in the Bible. One passage says, “It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” In other words, God intends to give you the Kingdom. This is His good pleasure; He wants to do it. Secondly, this reminds me of a passage in Ephesians. Paul was praying there, that Christ would make His home in your hearts by faith. You may wonder how this is related to the Kingdom of God. Well, the Kingdom of God is simply the reign of God. God is a King and He wants to reign over all the things on the earth, including you and me. The point is, when Paul prays that Christ would make His home in your hearts by faith, this brings in the Kingdom of God.

The next point is related to the will of God. Here he teaches us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This portion of the prayer reminds me of Genesis one. If I could quote the passage, it says, “Let Us create man in Our image.” God is speaking, there. Then it says, “Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the cattle, and over all the earth.” Then it says, “And especially over the creeping thing.” So when God created man, it was His intention that man would have dominion and that man would rule over the earth. Here in the Lord’s Prayer it says, “Thy will be done on earth, just like it is in heaven.” You see, in heaven, where God’s throne is, there is no problem. God’s will is done in heaven. God speaks, and it is carried out, but on the earth it is a different situation. So Jesus teaches us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth, just like it is in heaven.” Just like, in the book of Genesis, it says it was God’s intention that man would rule over this earth. The will of God mentioned in this prayer also reminds me of Matthew 7 where it says, “Not every one who says, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of My Father.” You see, entering into the Kingdom is not related to us just praying, “Lord, Lord”, but it is related to what? It is related to doing the will of the Father. So in this model prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray, “Thy will be done.” In other words, God we want Your will to be done, as it is in the heavens, as You see it, and as You desire it to happen on the earth. We want the will that is in the heavens where there are no problems, to come to this earth.”
Concluding the Lord’s Prayer
So let’s conclude. We have talked about seven points from the Lord’s Prayer or the model prayer. First of all, we are to pray in the Lord’s name. Secondly, we are to pray, “Thy Kingdom come”. Thirdly, pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Those three points are related to God: Thy Name, Thy Kingdom, and Thy will. Then there are four more points in that prayer related to us. How is that? Give us what we need today, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Then, “Forgive us our trespasses, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

In the Old Testament we have a character whose name was Samuel. We don’t have time to get into the details about Samuel right now, but just quickly, Samuel was a person who eventually knew the Word of God and the speaking of God. He was a person who knew God, he knew the Word of God, and he was a person who knew the voice of God.

I don’t want to read about Samuel right now, but I actually want to go through one of the Psalms, Psalm 119, the longest psalm in the Old Testament. There is one thing in this psalm that really stands out, and that is the phrase, “The Word” or, “The Word of God”. This refers to God’s written word in the Bible and also to God’s speaking to us. Several years ago I went through Psalm 119 and underlined the word, “word” because it is mentioned so many times in that psalm. So right now I want to go through Psalm 119 and mention some of the places where the word, “word” is used and give you just a little commentary, but not much. Okay, the first place in Psalm 119 where the word, “word” appears is in verse 9, “How shall a young man cleanse his way?” Then it says, “By taking heed according to Thy word.” So how do we cleanse our way, or how do we know the right way to go? We know the right way to go by the Word of the Lord. It says, “Forever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven.” In other words, in heaven, there is no problem with the Word of God, yet on the earth we know there is some problem. That is why the Lord Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus taught us to pray to bring the will of God from the heavens to the earth. This little verse says, “Forever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven.” Yet it was God’s intention that His will also be established on the earth. We also come to this verse in Psalm 119. It says, “The entrance of Thy word gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” Notice it does not just say that the reading of Thy words gives light, or the study of the Word gives light. We do need to read and study the Word, but it says, “The entrance of Thy words give light.” This passage always reminds me of John 6. There Jesus is speaking and He is talking to the disciples about a lot of things. He was talking about Himself being the Bread that came down from heaven to give life. At the end of that important portion He says, “The words that I speak unto you are spirit and life.” Listen, in order for the Word of God to have entrance into us, number one, our hearts have to be prepared to listen to the Word. Number two, we need to have the attitude that we are going to obey the Word of God. Then the Word of God needs to be spirit and life to us, because when it is spirit and life, it can enter into our heart. So Psalm 119 says, “The entrance of thy Word gives light.”

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This Christmas song is encouragement for those of us called to a special ministry like Joseph and Mary who brought forth Jesus. We are all called to express Jesus in a special way. Don’t fear, just follow God. God will do wonders. Title: Fear Fear Not Mary Fear…Fear not Mary You have favor with God […]